For more on declining enrollment in K-12 schools across the country, check out Bellwether’s newly updated “How Student Enrollment Declines Are Affecting Education Budgets, Explained in 10 Figures.”

In an era of widespread enrollment declines in U.S. public schools, districts in some places are experiencing enrollment surges. In South Texas, Medina Valley Independent School District has seen its enrollment grow by 115% — 5,000 students — over the last decade. Districts like Medina Valley simply cannot build new schools fast enough, while persistent enrollment declines have forced districts in nearby San Antonio to “rightsize” and close campuses.

Across the country, districts at the outer periphery of urban areas have grown over the last decade while enrollment in other geographic areas has declined. Amid rising housing costs and shifts to remote work, families have increasingly enrolled their children in exurban districts — schools located on the edge of metropolitan areas, just beyond suburbs. How and why has enrollment grown in some districts despite falling enrollment and birth rates nationwide? This commentary unveils the hidden geography of public school enrollment decline.

Where Is Public School Enrollment Growing?

Nationally, public school enrollment declined over the past decade and is projected to continue declining through at least fall 2031. Driven by falling birth rates, expanding private school choice programs, and migration trends, public school enrollment reached a 15-year low of 49 million students in 2024. These enrollment losses have been felt in the vast majority of states, and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) projects that 40 U.S. states and the District of Columbia will experience a decline in public school enrollment between 2022 and 2031.

But if you zoom in at the state level, public schools have experienced drastically different enrollment patterns depending on their geographic location (Figure 1). To break enrollment trends down by geography, it’s helpful to classify schools as cities, suburbs, communities on the edge of urban areas (fringe), those farther away (distant), and those farthest from population centers (remote). This classification approach differentiates schools based on their proximity to urban centers, rather than simply categorizing them as either “urban” or “rural.” 

Enrollment in fringe public schools grew by a remarkable 6% (380,000 students) over the last decade while enrollment declined in city (6%; 950,000 students), suburb (2%; 370,000 students), distant (5%; 320,000 students), and remote schools (6%; 170,000 students). Although this national trend persisted in a majority of states, some exhibited particularly large increases in fringe school enrollment. Texas (198,000), Florida (58,000), and Arizona (27,000) saw the largest fringe enrollment growth in absolute terms, while Utah (70%) and Nebraska (59%) experienced the greatest percent increases. These states have also had large net interstate migration in recent years, suggesting that families are not only moving to these states but also to fringe regions within them.

U.S. public schools in “fringe” areas have experienced enrollment growth since 2015, while schools in other areas have experienced enrollment declines.

Figure 1: Percent Change in Public School Enrollment Since 2015, by Geography

Note: NCES applies “locale classification” codes to schools to describe the geographic area where a school is located. In analyzing school enrollment trends based on geography, authors grouped the 12 NCES locale classification codes into five categories — city, suburb, fringe, distant, and remote — to best distinguish schools by their proximity to urban centers. Source: NCES, “ElSi Common Core of Data Table Generator,” 2026. 

The Exurban Shift

Located on the outer periphery of metropolitan areas, fringe districts are often just within commuting distance of an urban core. Think of Marengo, Illinois, rather than Chicago, or Canby, Oregon, rather than Portland. In fall 2024, 6.4 million students attended a public school in a fringe region of the country — roughly 13% of all U.S. public school students. 

The surge in fringe public school enrollment reflects increased migration into exurban areas over the last decade. In 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the country’s fastest-growing places “are increasingly likely to be far-flung exurban communities on the outer margins of metro areas.” Because fringe areas offer relatively affordable housing without sacrificing access to urban economic opportunities, young families have increasingly chosen to settle there to raise their children. Shifts toward remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic have also incentivized families to live farther from urban centers in more affordable areas.

Metropolitan San Antonio is illustrative of the exurban shift in U.S. public school enrollment (Figure 2). Between 2015 and 2024, enrollment in fringe public schools in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area rose by 40%, while enrollment in San Antonio city schools decreased by 7%.

In many U.S. metropolitan areas, public school enrollment in fringe schools has surged.

Figure 2: Public School Enrollment Trends by Geography in Select Metropolitan Areas, 2015-2024

Source: NCES, “ElSi Common Core of Data Table Generator,” 2026; NCES, “EDGE: Locale Boundaries,” 2025.

Across the country, these geographic enrollment patterns have forced some districts to build new campuses, while others have faced difficult budgetary trade-offs and school consolidations — all within the same region. 

As school districts confront these enrollment-related budget pressures, state policymakers, district leaders, and advocates must recognize these different experiences and tailor the supports they provide accordingly. Understanding where students are moving will become increasingly important for policymakers seeking to align school funding, facilities planning, and other public investments with changing population patterns.

The geography of public school enrollment is changing, and education policy will need to keep up.